


Change

by karanguni



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-24 00:08:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17693810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karanguni/pseuds/karanguni
Summary: 'You'd think you're as old as our fathers,' Artessa complains. 'Older.'





	Change

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nerissa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nerissa/gifts).



Artessa is due, in an hour, to make an appearance at her father's table for the banquet this evening. Their delegation is here in Yelles on a diplomatic mission; appearances are everything.

Artessa is, therefore, stripped down to shorts and an oversized shirt and deeply preoccupied with the latest in a long line of spellbooks. She has been engrossed since lunch, and before that had been engrossed since breakfast, and, before _that_ , engrossed since their arrival here in the capital the previous evening. She looks every inch a sixteen year old delinquent, albeit a very studious one.

Injana pulls open the elaborately carved rosewood doors of this guest suite's wardrobe, where staffers have long since pressed and hung their outfits. As befits her position as Artessa's sentinel, Injana's robes are a matte and shadowed blue-black affair layered with muted greys. As befits her position as the Prime Ascendant's daughter and a magicked one besides, Artessa's are a vision of yellows and golds accented in black.

'Be done with your studying,' Injana requests quietly as she pulls Artessa's clothing out to be laid upon the bed. 'Change.'

Artessa only hums, kicking her legs and tangling herself further in the sheets as though the cocoon of silk and cotton might save her from her duties. Injana's father, she suspects, does not have half the problems she has with Artessa with Artessa's father in turn. Or, if he does, he is too loyal to speak of them to her, as she is too loyal to Artessa – willful, brilliant, intractable Artessa – to speak ill of her to him.

'One more page,' Artessa insists, peeking up over the covers. Her eyes, at least, are already lined and coloured; someone must have taken her to task while Injana had been exercising in the late afternoon.

'Which shall turn into one more chapter?' Injana asks, arch.

'You'd think you're as old as our fathers,' Artessa complains. ' _Older_.'

'You have aged me beyond our years,' Injana intones, smoothing down wrinkles from the linen inner robe. 'Change.'

'I shall be of more use to the Ascendency as a learned magicked one than as a dressed up diplomatic doll,' Artessa objects, burrowing yet deeper.

'Shall I call your father a dressed up doll?'

'Will you?'

'No. _Change_.'

'Another page, Injana, just _one_ more–'

Injana sighs; Artessa pays her no heed.

Well, a sentinel must be creative with her charge.

Injana slides her tunic up over her head. She is bare beneath, having not bothered to fully dress after her bath and knowing that she would have to change so soon. She turns her back to the bed, and senses more than sees Artessa suddenly paying her heed. Her leggings join her tunic, then Injana stretches – as gracefully as she can manage – to pull the wardrobe doors open once more and reach – _extending_ – for her own robes. The slither over her arms and shoulders in a whisper of linen and then organza.

Injana hears the bed creak and then footsteps coming up behind her. 'Let me help you belt–'

'No,' Injana says, turning and placing a hand on Artessa's chest, just above her heart. She knows her eyes are smiling, even if she is not. ' _Change_.' She watches Artessa swallow. 'And _I_ will belt _your_ robes up, and make you presentable.'

'Make me dishevelled instead?' Artessa asks, so sweetly that Injana _almost_ says yes. Almost.

She ghosts her fingers over Artessa's clavicle instead, and – with discipline wrought from years of growing up at Artessa's side – tamps down on temptation. If they are late, they will _both_ of them be flayed alive by their parents.

'Change,' Injana smiles. 'Then later, I will help you change _out_.'


End file.
